


Sink or Swim

by CryptTheCryptid



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, Crying, De-gloving, Kidnapping, M/M, Marc Anciel Needs a Hug, Marc's Just having a bad time ok?, Mental Instability, Mind Break, Psychological Torture, Revenge, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:20:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29122551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CryptTheCryptid/pseuds/CryptTheCryptid
Summary: Marc wasn't supposed to be here, where even was here?
Relationships: Marc Anciel/Nathaniel Kurtzberg
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Sink or Swim

**Author's Note:**

> Me and my friends were all listing how many different ways we could kill someone/torture them to insanity. So I wrote this using some of my answers.

If he still had nerves Marc is sure they would be pleading for death, he knows he is. He had no clue how long he had been here, or why he was here - if there was even a reason at all - just that he would live in peace ever again. 

They had grabbed him on his way back from school, waiting until he was in the alleyway shortcut he always took to get home in time to make cookies with his Mumma and to tell Bianca stories while they waited for Mom to get home from work. 

Marc was proud to say he didn’t go down without a fight, and certainly made a ruckus before the 4 men drugged him and pulled him into their van before speeding off. 

He awoke in a large concrete room with a thick metal door, which had the only window and lightsource in the form of a slot for his captors to make sure he was still there, or - more commonly - mock him for getting caught.

Since then he had been choked, beat, cut, stabbed, and waterboarded so many times he no longer even flinched when his assailants drew a weapon. He wouldn’t make a sound or thrash in hopes they would go overboard and finally let him rest. 

He tried to lighten his mood and drag up some hope for his rescue by conjuring up dreams of sapphire eyes, flaming red hair, and supple pale skin. Dreams of exchanging kisses in the dark, dreams of teasing banter as they lay with one another, dreams of happily making lunch with one another, dreams of working on their comic, dreams of freedom.

He also dreams of his family, his mothers and his sister were definitely still looking for him, they probably were looking high and low and using every resource available to try to find him. He didn’t want to worry them anymore then he already had, he had to get back to them.

Slowly over time his hope of escape grew, more and more, with each passing day; his tormentors visited less and less and their torture was a lot more half-assed then it was when they first started out; it was like they weren’t even trying to hurt im anymore.

Things were looking up. Until suddenly out of nowhere it was ten times worse than when it started. Choking turned to holding his head underwater for minutes at a time, Beatings were replaced with him running through an inescapable maze while being pursued by masked figures armed with crowbars and bats, Stabbing remained mostly the same - thought they did choke him during it. 

He tried everything to attempt to make them stop, or at least go back to their original tactics. But nothing worked, no amount of crying, begging, pleading, or bribery made the torture stop. They had to physically restrain him when he was alone after they found him bashing his skull against the wall in hopes to end the horrible nightmare.

The already hell-on-earth tourture would randomly ramp up the intensity based on the leader’s mood. Marc was sure most acts performed during these time are illegal to even mention in some countries.

Today was one of these times, ‘the boss’ was angry, more specifically, angry at him. For what reason Marc didn’t know, but the guards seemed more interested in making morbid jokes about his fate - such as how many bags it would take to dispose of him - instead of actually telling him what was going on.

They dragged him to a large rusty door and shoved him into an iron chair, and tied his hands apart to the table. He was left alone for a while, only the now-silent guards as company while he awaited what new horror he would have to face today.

Eventually the door swung open, slamming against the wall with a bang and the boss’s voice echoed around him in quiet rage.

“What do you know about this man.” Several photos are placed in front of the writer, all of them a man with brown hair and blue eyes, he was tall and bland, nothing of note that made him eye-catching.

“I’ve never met him sir.”

This was, apparently, the wrong answer. The boss pulled a knife from his tool belt and laid it upon the table in front of Marc, just out of his reach.

“Now listen here brat, you are going to tell me  _ everything  _ you know about this man or I will show you the things degloving can do to someone’s mental state.”

* * *

Marc’s hands were on fire, his nerves screamed for mercy or death. The skin of his hands had been peeled back to expose the muscle tissue until the table was coated in a sheen of his blood. When he continued to insist he didn’t know the man in the pictures they pulled out a familiar container.

He writhed, desperately trying to get away from him but the iron cuffs kept him in place, leaving him completely vulnerable to the salt they poured over his wounds.

Tears and snot ran down his face as he sobbed and pleaded, trying to convince the men he knew nothing about the photos. When it was all finally done they set down a picture of the writer and Nathaniel next to each other, “See you do know of him after-all.”

What did Nathaniel have to do with any of this? The man not only looked nothing like him but he was also visibly much older than the redhead. Was this some sort of mistake? He looked between the photos. No wait, this wasn’t a mistake, this was no mistake in the slightest. The man in those photos was none other than Roy Nickleback, his boyfriend’s dad.

* * *

Desperate to get any sort of medical attention to his now  _ skinless _ hands he blabbered on about everything. About how he didn’t know Roy other than dating his son, about the abuse he  _ knows _ Roy has inflicted on the redhead, and about how rude and offputting he seemed in interviews.

Luckily this time they believed him, their anger melting away the longer he babbled on their looks of pride and anger slowly melting away into horror and guilt. That was when Marc finally learned why they had brought him here.

They had assumed - due to his obnoxious height - he had been an adult, and that he cared for Nathaniel while Roy was out of town. All the members seemed sick when he informed them that he didn’t work for Nickelback Industries; their nausea growing worse when he told them he was actually just dating the bastard’s son.

They had rinsed off his hands as carefully as they could, before bandaging them up. During this time they told him  _ why _ they wanted someone close to Mr. Nickelback in the first place.

Spade Industries had been a well respected weapons manufacturer. Until someone called a hit on the founder’s son, causing him to spiral into madness trying to figure out who did it.

When Jaques learned it was his business rival who had called the hit he hired a group of thugs to kidnap someone close to the man and put him in debt with ransom fee’s.

The group had aimed for someone important to Roy other than his son as their morals forbid them from harming a child. Genetics really did deliver a huge marble carving of a middle finger to him didn’t it.

The middle finger got larger when the group informed him that as ‘sorry’ they were about him being dragged into this they couldn’t allow him to love to tell anyone. 

The last thing he felt was a sharp pain to his skull, accompanied by the sounds of sirens and screams.

* * *

Marc felt like he was underwater, but it was  _ different  _ somehow, the ‘water’ pulled him down into its depths like normal water yet somehow he could still breathe no matter how deep he got. Soothing voices called to him from below, promising an end to the pain and suffering, promising a happier place.

But there were also voices above, loud ones, begging him to hold on. These voices he could put names to. A loud threat that if he died Alix would punt him, A sob from his Mumma, Bia was crying as well, and Mari was babbling on about the stuff they would do when he got better.

Those things sounded fun, but the other voices promised a life of no more pain, its the better option right? 

He moved deeper into his mind, allowing the soothing voices to grow louder and praise him. Then a loud voice cut through them.

“MARC FUCKING ANCIEL YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DIE ON ME!”

Oh, right, he couldn’t leave just yet, he still had Nathaniel. A life with Nathaniel sounded better than a life with no worries.

He swam up.

**Author's Note:**

> I might make a sequel to this at some point during my sad time hours (tm), but if yall ask for one then I'll be petty and wont write it.


End file.
